Celebrate Earth Day with Sustainable Eating Habits

Chaia Tacos founders, Suzanne Simon and Bettina Stern.

Small dietary changes can add up to a more sustainable and healthier you

By Tim Ebner | Edible DC

Earth Day is an annual reminder to examine our impact on the planet and do some good — from community cleanups to bike-to-work celebrations — there are so many ways to make a positive environmental change in your local community.

What you put on your plate also matters. Supporting sustainable food systems and eating more fruits and vegetables, sourced locally, can be an excellent way to reduce your carbon footprint, eat healthier, and sustain small and local purveyors in the region.

Plant Power can be a lifestyle change that also results in a more wholesome you. Even if you’re not ready to go vegan or vegetarian, there are so many local CSAs and farmers’ markets in our region that make it easy to adopt a more vegetable-centric diet.

Several local businesses have also promoted this type of sustainable eating habit, including the fast-casual chain Chaia Tacos.

We sat down with the founders, Bettina Stern and Suzanne Simon, to learn more about how a plant-based diet can be an easy way to love Mother Earth.

EdibleDC: How do food choices or dietary decisions impact the environment?

Suzanne: The diet choices that are best for our health are, fittingly, often the ones that are best for the health of our environment. This goes full circle because personal wellness is also largely dependent on that of the environment. If we collectively opted for sustainably-produced food, we would not only help combat climate change by lowering carbon emissions, but we would also help reduce respiratory disease-causing smog and pollution; pollution in our streams, rivers, and oceans linked to a multitude of serious diseases and disorders — like food supply disruptions and wildfires. We built Chaia to help people make these choices more easily and more deliciously. 

EDC: What are some of the benefits of a vegetable-based diet? 

Bettina: When it comes to personal health, research shows that a vegetable-based diet lowers blood pressure, reduces, and reverses the risk of heart disease and diabetes. It can also result in weight loss, slow the risk of cognitive decline, and overall it’s correlated with a longer life. As for the environmental impact, it reduces an individual’s carbon footprint, conserves water, decreases water and air pollution, and lessens land degradation. 

Still, it’s critical for people to understand that you don’t have to exclusively eat plants to make a positive impact on your health and the health of the environment. At Chaia, we want to be change-makers, not vegetarian evangelists. We believe that all the small things individuals do can make a big difference – that’s why our goal is to get people to eat more vegetables, not only vegetables (unless they want to!). In fact, a 2021 study published in the research journal Nature Food found that substituting only 10 percent of daily caloric intake from beef and processed meat with items including vegetables can cut a person’s food-based environmental footprint by one-third and add 48-minutes, per-day to their lifespan!  

EDC: What are some easy ways to substitute meat in a daily diet?

Suzanne: Generally speaking, mushrooms and beans are great meat substitutes. These are staple ingredients in our kitchens at home and at Chaia and appear on our menu in multiple ways. 

For mushrooms, try the white-button variety - they have excellent taste, are easy to find, and are more affordable compared to some trendier, wilder varieties. We start with a simple sauté in garlic and olive oil and then let them cook for a long time. This longer cooking process improves the texture and concentrates the flavor. The liquid evaporates, and the mushrooms turn brown very gradually. Our Braised Mushroom taco with salsa roja, feta, and cilantro is a permanent taco on our menu, unlike some of our other seasonal options. We use this same cooking method at home but sometimes finish the mushrooms with cream and Madeira to create a thick sauce. Pro tip: serve on a piece of crusty, toasted bread with salad for an easy weekday vegetarian meal.

For more great recipe ideas, we recommend checking out our Edible DC recipe and subscribing to “Cooking” from The New York Times. Some of our NYT favorites to date from their collection include tomato-braised chickpeas with tahini, farro, and lentils with jammy onions and a wild mushroom tart. NYT also publishes “The Veggie” newsletter weekly, written by Los Angeles-based writer Tejal Rao, it’s loaded with great tips for vegetable prep!

A few other pieces of guidance we stand by are:

• Everything in moderation. If you’re not a vegetarian, trying to completely deprive yourself of meat likely isn’t going to have the long-term impact you’re intending, simply because you’re unlikely to stick to the diet. Moderation is a much more successful approach to lasting change than stringency. 

• Know where your food comes from. Whether you plan to eat meat from time to time or go fully plant-based, where your food comes from matters. Know which vegetables and fruits are in season in your region; eating in rhythm with the seasons is nature’s secret to thriving personal and environmental health.

• Processed plant-based proteins are a once-in-a-while solution. We increasingly get asked about the health and environmental benefits of plant-based proteins as meat alternatives. While the convenience factor of microwaving a frozen plant-based patty is undeniable, these alternatives are often higher in carbohydrates and calories than meat itself, and certainly not nearly as nutritious as whole, fresh vegetables. 

EDC: How does your menu incorporate your goals about creating sustainability and limiting environmental impact?

Bettina: Our menu concept is to create food that tastes so delicious, people want to come back again and again and don't even miss the meat - then all the other benefits of sustainability and the environment are possible. That’s why our menu is made from only the freshest seasonal ingredients – organic and locally-sourced whenever possible, inventively prepared from scratch and combined with spices, house-made salsas, and other tasty toppings, all tucked inside a handmade, freshly-griddled corn tortilla. Yum! 

EDC: What will you be doing to celebrate Earth Day?

Suzanne: We’re going back to our Chaia roots! We started as a farmers’ market stand in 2013 and our first store opened in Georgetown in 2015. We’re planning a pop-up at The Georgetown University Farmers’ Market the Wednesday before Earth Day, April 20, where we’ll be handing out free tacos to students and holding a giveaway raffle. 

We've found that college students are particularly interested in learning about and supporting sustainable businesses, reducing their footprint, and finding ways to improve the environment. We’re always looking to embrace and support that sense of responsibility, and are looking forward to meeting and chatting with many of them on campus.

Tim Ebner is a contributing writer for The Washington Post, Eater, Thrillist, DC Refined, and Capitol File Magazine and is a nationally award-winning writer for his work for Edible DC. He lives in Washington, DC and works full-time as a senior editor for Associations Now. Follow him @ebnert on Instagram.